This application is the US national phase of international application PCT/EP00/07788 filed Aug. 10, 2000 which designated the U.S.
The invention relates to a calibrating and cutting device, in particular for cutting portions of longitudinally separated pieces of raw meat into strip or dice form.
Particularly the mechanical production of meat kebabs involves the problem of cutting pieces of raw meat into dice form.
A device for cutting pieces of raw meat into dice or longitudinal strips has already been disclosed. Since meat in the thawed state is too yielding and soft to be cut into dice or longitudinal strips, these known methods require the meat to be partially frozen beforehand. It may even be necessary for the piece of meat first of all to be laterally compressed so that it can then be forced out of a pressing cavity, onto a grid-shaped blade arrangement. Pressing the meat through this gate-like blade arrangement leads to the meat being cut into longitudinal strips. A second gate is arranged congruently with the first blade gate in the direction of advance, at a short distance therefrom in the advancing movement of the meat, between which gates a serrated knife is guided through, executing a rotary movement, and as a result, depending on the advancing movement of the meat, cuts the longitudinal strips into dice.
However, a known method of this type is only able to produce very unevenly portioned dice, since the small pieces of meat are often not cut through cleanly. Moreover, this known method cannot be used to process fresh meat, which is too soft, requiring the meat to be at least partially frozen.
Particularly for portioning companies which package their goods in, for example, fresh containers under inert gas (as are also customarily sold in supermarkets), however, it is highly advantageous for meat to be processed fresh. This makes it possible to avoid the following three drawbacks of partial freezing, namely
a loss of hygiene and/or quality caused by the partial freezing,
loss of juices from the meat as a result of the partial freezing, and
loss of colour from the meat, which indicates a loss of freshness to the person in the street.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved device and an improved method for producing foodstuff products in dice and/or strip form, in particular for producing pieces of raw meat in dice or strip form.
The present invention allows a considerable improvement compared to conventional solutions while using amazingly simple means.
According to the invention, the meat which is to be divided into portions is forced through a blade gate by means of a pressing cylinder and in this way is longitudinally divided into a number of strands of meat.
A considerable improvement can be achieved by the fact that the meat is not continuously pressed through a blade gate and cut into pieces, but rather the small pieces of meat which are to be cut into dice or strip form are in each case pressed through a corresponding blade gate, but only until the mass of meat which is cut into strip form in the longitudinal direction has been introduced into a portioning plate which is arranged beneath the blade gate, i.e. in the direction of advance of the meat, and is closed at the bottom during this step. This avoids what is known as xe2x80x9ctwistingxe2x80x9d of the strands of meat, which is caused primarily by the different consistency of the various strands of muscle, fat and tendon.
After a calibrating cavity of this type has been filled by the mass of meat which has first been separated and cut through in the longitudinal direction, a blade is then moved through beneath the cutting grid, in other words between the cutting grid and the calibrating cavity, in order then to separate meat portions in diced form from the longitudinal strips. The diced meat portions can then be emptied out of the calibrating plate and the further cutting operation can be carried out in a subsequent, further step.
Although a calibrating device with a fillable calibrating cavity for dividing fillets of meat (for example schnitzel fillets) into portions is known, it has now been found that only the combination of a meat-calibrating device of this type, which is known per se, with a blade gate directly above the calibrating cavity can achieve the desired success. Consequently, according to the invention, it is possible to produce highly uniform dice or strips of meat.
In a further improved embodiment, the uniformity of the individual dice or strips of meat can be improved still further by the fact that, in the calibrating cavity itself, there are also webs, corresponding to the blade-gate arrangement, which therefore lie congruently with the blade gate as seen in the direction of advance of the strips of meat. This is because during the advancing movement, i.e. during the operation of being pressed through the blade gate, the meat to a very large extent behaves in a similar manner to a liquid, so that the strips of meat can even be said to xe2x80x9cflowxe2x80x9d in the portioning plate, with the result that portions of different sizes would be formed if the additionally mentioned webs were not there to prevent individual strips of meat from xe2x80x9cflowing awayxe2x80x9d to the sides.